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lomonaaeren) wrote2007-09-06 06:10 pm
lomonaaeren) wrote2007-09-06 06:10 pm
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Chapter 14 of 'I Give You a Wondrous Mirror'- The Box
Remember, DH SPOILERS in this story!
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Just a warning: Both this chapter and Chapter 15 are not the nicest chapters. There’s no graphic gore, but there is emotional torture and extreme angst.
Chapter Fourteen—The Box
Harry woke so slowly that he had the impression he was walking down a dark road long before he opened his eyes. Oddly enough, there was softness beneath his head, but when he shifted, the softness squirmed and kicked him.
“Get off me, Potter,” Draco hissed, and Harry shut his just-opened eyes in sheer relief. Draco was well enough to complain. That was an excellent sign. “They put us here and dumped you on top of me, and now that you can hold your own head up, you can damn well get off me.”
Harry sat up and felt at his face. They had left him his glasses. Of course, the reason they had done that soon became obvious, since he and Draco were in darkness so thick he couldn’t see anyway, but that didn’t change the sense of relief he felt at the discovery.
“Couldn’t let poor Harry Potter be uncomfortable, could you, Draco-Waco?” he murmured.
“If you’ll stop your childish insults,” Draco said, his voice calm and intense, “you might realize we’re in a spot of trouble here.”
Harry blew away the impulse to make another morbid joke. It would have helped ease Ron’s stress, but he wasn’t in this bad situation with Ron. More’s the pity. He felt more comfortable planning an escape with his best friend than he did with Draco.
But needs must. He slapped his hand down on the floor, confirming it was smooth, fitted stone, and began to feel ahead of him, to estimate how large the cell was. About fifteen paces by twenty, he thought, though why they should have given prisoners a room so large he didn’t know. But it couldn’t have been more than a temporary holding place, with the lack of anything to eat and a place to relieve themselves.
Unless they just don’t care whether this room stinks.
Harry closed his eyes, trying to remember what he’d heard of the methods of Salazar’s Snakes. They did the usual busywork that most of the pure-blood supremacist groups indulged in, of course: threatening letters to politically prominent Muggleborns, odd prank spells going off at all hours of the day and night around their targets’ homes, their symbol—a green snake clutching a bleeding hand in its mouth—left here and there on walls. But they didn’t take credit for as much blood magic and wide-scale terror as the other groups did.
Hermione had thought it was because Salazar’s Snakes were more disaffected than hateful. Harry was inclined to doubt that now. Instead, they probably wanted to keep their strength and their usual behaviors secret, hidden from expectations, so that when they finally acted it would come as a surprise.
Their capture in Diagon Alley had certainly been smooth, he thought with a certain reluctant admiration. They had probably played the part of mediwizards from St. Mungo’s rushing to the sides of accident victims, or of concerned bystanders who had volunteered to take Harry and Draco to the hospital. Move quickly enough, close around them thoroughly enough, and no one would have noticed that the victims were Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy.
No one might even have noticed they were missing, yet.
As he felt for wounds they might have inflicted on him, Harry asked, “Do you know how long we’ve been here, Draco?”
“Yes,” Draco said solemnly. “I have a pocket-watch that begins ticking when I’m captured by my enemies, and chirps every five minutes to helpfully tell me how much time has passed since the capture.”
Harry rolled his eyes, but didn’t comment. Obviously, Ron dealt with captivity by joking, and Draco dealt with captivity by being a prat. “Are you hurt?”
“Not as much as I should be after taking a faceful of glass.”
There was a question in Draco’s voice, and Harry told himself that he owed it to the other man to answer it. He forced himself to sit flat on the floor and turn around. His back was comfortably against a wall, though since he hadn’t yet located any door, it might open behind him at any time. “The curse took over again,” he admitted, “just like that night the mirror slashed your arm open. I saw golden light, and my touch seemed to heal the wound. But I think you have a scar on your forehead now.”
He could feel Draco’s tension humming through the darkness, but he said nothing for some time. Harry felt cautiously across the wall behind him. Nothing.
“You mean,” Draco said, his voice so thick and fierce that it took Harry a long moment to understand the words, “that I have a scar on my forehead—just like you?”
And the insight that had been trying to surface in Harry’s mind when Salazar’s Snakes sneaked up on them came to him at last. He clapped his hands together, and heard Draco make a startled sound. Harry ignored it, his mind racing back across what had happened the night Draco ended up in front of the exploding mirror, and what Draco had already told him about the operation of the curse on his part.
“That’s exactly what it’s trying to do,” he whispered. “Mark us in the same ways.”
“Is there any chance of your sharing the meaning of your idiotic babble with me today, Potter?”
“The scars,” Harry said. “You told me that the scars from the spell I cast at you in sixth year still tingle.”
“Yes,” Draco said, in a querulous tone.
“I’m marked in four places,” Harry said softly. “My forehead, yes, but also on my hand, my forearm, and over my heart.”
More tense silence, and Harry passed the time by feeling for his wand, even though he was sure that it had been taken from him. It had. And Draco couldn’t have his, either, or he would have least cast a Lumos or tried to alert someone to their predicament.
“I’m marked on my arm, my chest, and my forehead now,” he said, sounding strangled.
“Exactly,” said Harry, giving up the search and making his way back across the cell towards Draco’s voice. He took the other man’s hand, ignoring his startled jerk. It seemed that Draco was, if not actively afraid of the darkness, at least not comfortable in it. Yes, he would have definitely called for light if he had his wand. “That means that you have three scars, and when you have four—“
“We can expect something else disgusting to happen,” Draco snarled.
“Disgusting?” Harry could understand why Draco might be upset or frightened of the curse—what would happen if he endured another accident and Harry was not near at hand to heal the wounds to a scar?—but disgusted was a new reaction.
“Yes.” Draco’s hand closed into a fist within his, and then pulled roughly away. “I endured enough of things like this when the Dark Lord was alive, Harry. I have no wish to endure more.”
“I understand that,” Harry said, as calmly as he could, “but this might give us a clue to the operation of the curse.”
Draco said nothing.
Harry stifled the impulse to touch him again, and listened in silence to his breathing. It had grown louder—more ragged, quicker. Harry bit his lip thoughtfully. He knew the signs of fear, but he wondered what it was Draco remembered to make him sound like that.
It’s not my place to ask, and I won’t insist on knowing unless it becomes vital to our survival. “We’ll do what we can about it when we escape,” he said.
Draco laughed, then, a sound that seemed just as jerked out of his lungs as his breathing had become. “And how do you think we’ll do that?” he asked. “They took our wands, Harry. And they’ll want to kill me, at least, if Marian is with them. That had to be the price of her aid.”
“Why would a pure-blood supremacist group want to kill you?” Harry asked. Maybe Draco was so frightened at the moment that he needed the simplest truths spelled out for him. Once again, Harry could not really blame him. “You’re a pure-blood.”
“And yet, I have received threats, and here we are,” Draco said, and by the sound of it, he’d risen to his feet and was pacing. Harry opened his mouth to give a warning, and then shut it. If the floor was utterly smooth, the way it had felt, Draco wouldn’t trip on anything.
And since when am I so solicitous for Draco, anyway?
But he’d felt the same way for Ron the times that he and Ron had worked on Auror cases that crossed the work of the Blood Reparations Department and been captured together. By now, it was almost a routine for them. Ron would joke and hatch useless plans that would only work if they had their wands back, and Harry would listen to the jokes, wait for an opportunity to challenge their captors, and protect his friend from his own hot temper.
Draco might need protection from his own nervousness. Harry forced himself to concentrate on the sound of the other man’s breathing as much as the sound of the words.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they have us, pure-blood group or not,” Draco was saying. “Unless you want to propose a conspiracy of groups working against me, which frankly is laughable.”
“I know,” Harry said, but he tucked the thought away to think about later. “Have you heard anything? Laughter, conversations? How soon did you wake up?”
“Not long after they took us, I think.” Draco gave a loud, gusty sigh, which only trembled a bit at the end. Perhaps he was better at controlling his fear now that he knew someone else was awake and with him. “But we were already alone. And I think there are sound-proofing spells on the walls of this room. I leaned my ear against the stone as long as I could bear it, but nothing. And focusing my magic as much as possible—“
“There are magic-deadening charms, too,” Harry said knowledgably. If there had not been, then he would have felt the surge of power within him. He couldn’t do much that was focused without his wand, but he could achieve some spectacular rough effects. “They were taking no chances on us escaping.”
“How did they know we would be in Diagon Alley?” Draco asked. “Do you think Marian set a trap for us?”
“Maybe.” Harry jolted his mind out of thoughts of worry over Draco and tried to make himself think rationally. “She certainly could have showed herself to shopkeepers in altered guises, or paid people to spread rumors. On the other hand, we were in the Alley for three hours before they attacked. And I doubt they could have known that the window would explode before we did. They took advantage of the chance quickly and smoothly, I agree, but their attack doesn’t make much sense.”
“No, it doesn’t—“
The sound of a door sliding open across the room stung Harry like a whip. He was up and between Draco and the door before he had stopped blinking in the positive dazzle of lamplight that whipped at his eyes in turn. He spread his arms wide, offering Draco as much protection as he could, and looked steadily at the wizard who had intruded.
The woman merely stood still, however, and studied him. She wore a hooded cloak and green mask, and Harry could only tell she was a woman from the way she walked and balanced. Either she had extremely short hair or she’d charmed it to lie flat under the hood. She drew a wand and gestured once towards the room beyond her.
The meaning was unmistakable. Harry shuffled forwards closely, turning so that he was always between Draco and the witch. He thought he heard her chuckle as they passed. Though he strained his ears, he still couldn’t recognize her voice.
She walked closely behind them as they passed into the next room. Harry immediately tried to will his wand to come to him, but the same charms must have covered the entire building; his magic lay sleeping within him.
The room was large, enough that Harry thought it was probably in another manor house somewhere. The walls had been disguised with ripples of watery illusion, however, so that all Harry saw when he looked at them were glints of green and blue. Perhaps a portrait frame or a curtain gleamed free here and there; none of it would be enough to identify the room for certain if he saw it again. Even what might have been a chandelier hanging from the ceiling was clad in a glamour like an enormous spiderweb.
The Salazar’s Snakes waited about the room in a circle. All were hooded and cloaked. No one said anything. Harry wanted to snort. Elementary intimidation tactics. Many of the supremacist groups he’d opposed did them much better.
The woman who’d guided them in moved to stand at the far point of the circle, and the others shifted apart to let her through. Harry raised his eyebrows, and still they continued to stare. Harry cocked his head and wondered if they were also breathing in unison.
Well, if no one else planned to speak, he would.
“You really don’t want to be present when Hermione finds out what you’ve done,” he said conversationally. “She generally doesn’t react well when someone kidnaps her best friend. Why don’t you give us back our wands and let us go before she does find out? It would be the smartest thing you’ve done since you captured us in Diagon Alley.”
*
Draco hissed between his teeth. Does he want to die? You don’t speak like that to someone with power over you.
It was a lesson he had learned well during the year the Dark Lord spent so much of his time in Malfoy Manor. Sarcasm had to be given up. Since the Dark Lord was a Legilimens, Draco couldn’t even think the many things he would have liked to say at first. So he kept his eyes on the floor, and learned to do what he was told when he was told to do it, no matter how distasteful it was, and spent little time with his parents, so as not to render them targets if the Dark Lord grew angry at him.
And Harry glared at their silent, motionless captors as if he were perfectly in control of the situation.
Draco could now believe the stories that Harry had spat at the Dark Lord’s face and challenged him with insults. It was a stupid thing to do, but Harry carried courage into the definition of stupid.
“I assure you,” he said quietly, “I have not changed my mind as radically as you seem to think I have. No Mudblood will walk on the grounds of Malfoy Manor while I live. And I do still have money—plenty of it. My mother can arrange ransom procedures.” It wasn’t really that long ago—a few centuries only—that pure-blood families had sometimes kidnapped the heirs of other prominent lines, usually for money, sometimes for revenge, sometimes for marriage partners. Because anyone who cared to inquire would know that Draco was already married, it couldn’t be the last of those purposes, and Draco couldn’t conceive what they would want revenge on him for. Money, though, was a constant concern of groups like this one, who were hardly able to ask for funding from the Ministry.
“We know about your crimes, Draco Malfoy,” said a disembodied voice that reminded Draco of the voice of the Bloody Baron. He was almost sure it was, in fact. There was a spell that could make the speaker’s voice sound like a ghost’s. Criminals commonly employed it when they didn’t want to be recognized. “We know that for the past ten years, you have fattened yourself on the remains of a pardon and made no effort to relieve the suffering of your father in prison.”
“My father is completing his assigned sentence,” Draco said stiffly. Despite everything, that accusation stung. “Trying to talk the Ministry into lightening it would have jeopardized the future of the family.”
“Excuses,” said the same voice, but perhaps not the same person, since it was coming from elsewhere in the circle now. “Always excuses. Your father was a hero.”
Draco thought of the way his father’s face had looked when the Dark Lord took first his wand and then his home, and bit his tongue, hard. At least there didn’t appear to be a Legilimens among them.
He felt Harry move closer to him, and just barely kept from shaking his head in exasperation. What did Harry think he was going to do? Volunteer to take on any pain curses that might be aimed at Draco? Draco knew how these things went. Harry had been a captive, yes, but never for any length of time. Draco could already feel his instincts shifting back towards what they’d been in that dreadful year, when one denigrated oneself if one wanted to survive.
“He may have been,” he said, his eyes lowered, his voice meek. He need feel no dishonor. He was sure that it was no Mudblood who lectured him, and submitting to the person who held the power at the moment was sheer good sense. “But I like to think that he would commend me for what I am doing: facing my enemies, resisting baseless accusations of murder, and continuing to raise my son to share in the Malfoy legacy, holding it secure for him.”
“There is someone among us who is concerned about the way you raise your son.”
Draco restrained a grim smile. Marian. She is one of them, then. Perhaps she was the one who had taunted him with this. Well, she should have restrained the impulse. Perhaps she had gained some petty, fleeting satisfaction from the maneuver, but Draco had gained far more valuable information. “I know,” he said. “And I would welcome friends who could teach me what my son has missed.”
The witch who had guided them out into the room laughed, but even that was disguised, so that it sounded like wind moaning through open windows. “We are not your friends, Draco Malfoy. We are very far from being your friends.”
“What are you, then?” Draco asked, but the witch turned away and addressed Harry instead of looking at him. Draco folded his hands tightly behind his back, though he knew there were watchers behind them, too, and prayed that Harry wouldn’t say anything too stupid.
“We have had enough of you, as well, Mr. Potter,” she said. “Your ‘work’ with the Blood Reparations Department has often obstructed many of our dearest goals.”
Draco sneaked a look at Harry. His face was bored, and his arms folded, as if he didn’t care what anyone in the room might say. He shook his head slightly. “And I will continue to do that,” he said. “Hermione even more. I keep trying to tell you, when she finds out that you targeted one of her friends, she’s going to make a target out of you.”
Draco thought a few of the wizards shifted uneasily at that, but the witch in the center simply stepped forwards. “The debt we owe you cannot simply be wiped out by blood,” she whispered. “Not even the Cruciatus Curse will bring us the satisfaction we desire.”
“Let me guess,” said Harry. “Each of you will slap me for my impertinence and recite your family trees at me until I die of boredom.”
The witch laughed again, and then took several more steps forwards, until she stood a few inches away from Harry. Draco was suddenly sure that, whatever importance he might hold for the others, Harry was this woman’s focus. She lifted a hand as if she would really slap him, but turned it into a caress on his cheek. Harry jerked his face away, wrinkling his lip in disgust, and Draco felt jealousy wake in him with a sudden snarl. It was bad enough to think of Harry spending the nights with his legitimately bonded wife.
“We have information on you,” she whispered. “We know things about you that would make you tremble to know they were in our possession. How you laugh, how much you like your job—and what your childhood was like.”
Draco glanced at Harry. Harry’s eyes were narrow slits of green. If not for the spells on the room that deadened their ability to perform magic, Draco thought he would have felt Harry’s magic rising and raging around him. Of course, there had been so many rumors in the Daily Prophet about Harry’s less-than-desirable childhood that Draco wasn’t entirely sure what the truth was, but Harry didn’t look at all frightened. Only angry that they’d taken the liberty, Draco supposed.
“Ah,” Harry said. “I understand now. You’ll simply recite insinuations at me until I die of boredom.”
The witch chuckled again, infuriatingly, and glanced at Draco. “And we have information on young Mr. Malfoy, as well,” she said. “From someone who has shared his life for quite a while, and may know much more than he wants her to, simply because she is a good observer.” She paused dramatically. “Gentlemen, did you know that you share a phobia?”
Harry’s eyes only widened in confusion, but Draco felt his heart suddenly leap like a captured Snitch.
No. She wouldn’t. She doesn’t know—
But she might have. She might have. She had shared his bed for years, and Draco had had nightmares, and he might have cried out during them. And there had been the period when Narcissa had been so anxious to make her daughter-in-law comfortable in the Manor, and had thought the way to do it was to tell her more about Draco’s history.
“You’re lying,” he said, and thought he did quite a good job of feigning coolness around the sour taste in his mouth.
“I am not,” said the witch promptly, and then waved her wand. That made Draco wonder if the magic-dampening spells were on him and Harry, instead of the building. It would make sense, especially with the glamours shimmering on the walls—
He tried to distract himself from what he knew was coming, but it was useless.
Especially when the box floated into the center of the room.
It looked like a coffin, though it was both wider and deeper. Draco stared at it the way he imagined a toddler might regard a Dementor. It was made of some bright, nearly red, polished wood, perhaps cherry. It had a hinged lid that would close down on it—
On whoever lay inside—
He was breathing so fast that he had already dried his mouth out. Harry turned to stare at him uncomprehendingly.
“The fear of small, dark places,” the witch said, and chuckled again. “Mr. Potter grew up in a cupboard, and Mr. Malfoy had a—shall we say, an experience, with a corner of his parents’ cellar during the war? Provided by his aunt Lestrange, of course. Quite an experience. It lasted three days.” She cocked her head. “Our source of information says that he came out with his sanity intact, but precariously balanced.”
Draco turned to run, despite knowing it would do absolutely no good. A Tripping Jinx closed on him at once, of course, and he pitched to the ground. Then he was floating into the air, and the box’s lid was open, and he was squirming—
He was screaming, though it was high and thin and soundless. His mind and his blood boiled with the memories of Bellatrix, locking him into place with spells that damped all his senses, in a magic-created cell so small he could barely stand up in it. And now he would be locked in a box smaller than that, shared with Potter, and there would be spells on the box to muffle noise and feeling, he knew there would, and it would be dark—
“Enjoy prison, gentlemen,” the witch said, with a deep sigh, as they settled in and the lid swung shut. The voice-altering charm could not disguise that the sound was one of intense vindication.
*
Harry had already seen what would need to be done.
Their information on him was interesting, but incomplete. Harry had never particularly liked his cupboard, but neither had it given him claustrophobia. He had survived it, and sometimes it had even provided him a safe space from the Dursleys, and that was more than enough to dispel any fear.
Draco, on the other hand, was struggling like a mad thing, keening, his fear all too much alive. Even if they were rescued soon, Harry thought, he might very well come out of the box insane or catatonic.
The box’s lid sealed and locked. As Harry had anticipated, the inside was utterly dark, without even a line of light to mark the top, and there was just barely room enough for both of them to lie down, facing each other, with their legs tangled together. Sound-proofing spells guarded them from hearing any sound their captors might make or being heard if they screamed, the box’s wood felt like nothing in particular, and other charms had removed any smell and taste from the air. They were not going to suffocate, Harry discerned; a hidden vent gave them fresh air. But it was going to be absolute and endless torture for Draco.
So Harry did what needed to be done. He hummed, verifying to himself that no sound-proofing spells had been cast on the inside of the box, and then he slid forwards, turning so he was chest to chest with Draco, and wrapped his arms around him. Draco didn’t seem to notice; he was still caught in his silent, furious struggle, though his movements were more restricted now.
“Draco,” Harry said, his voice as calm and deep as he could possibly make it. “Listen to me, Draco. Focus on my voice. It will help you.”
And, drawing his breath, he began to talk.
Chapter 15.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Just a warning: Both this chapter and Chapter 15 are not the nicest chapters. There’s no graphic gore, but there is emotional torture and extreme angst.
Chapter Fourteen—The Box
Harry woke so slowly that he had the impression he was walking down a dark road long before he opened his eyes. Oddly enough, there was softness beneath his head, but when he shifted, the softness squirmed and kicked him.
“Get off me, Potter,” Draco hissed, and Harry shut his just-opened eyes in sheer relief. Draco was well enough to complain. That was an excellent sign. “They put us here and dumped you on top of me, and now that you can hold your own head up, you can damn well get off me.”
Harry sat up and felt at his face. They had left him his glasses. Of course, the reason they had done that soon became obvious, since he and Draco were in darkness so thick he couldn’t see anyway, but that didn’t change the sense of relief he felt at the discovery.
“Couldn’t let poor Harry Potter be uncomfortable, could you, Draco-Waco?” he murmured.
“If you’ll stop your childish insults,” Draco said, his voice calm and intense, “you might realize we’re in a spot of trouble here.”
Harry blew away the impulse to make another morbid joke. It would have helped ease Ron’s stress, but he wasn’t in this bad situation with Ron. More’s the pity. He felt more comfortable planning an escape with his best friend than he did with Draco.
But needs must. He slapped his hand down on the floor, confirming it was smooth, fitted stone, and began to feel ahead of him, to estimate how large the cell was. About fifteen paces by twenty, he thought, though why they should have given prisoners a room so large he didn’t know. But it couldn’t have been more than a temporary holding place, with the lack of anything to eat and a place to relieve themselves.
Unless they just don’t care whether this room stinks.
Harry closed his eyes, trying to remember what he’d heard of the methods of Salazar’s Snakes. They did the usual busywork that most of the pure-blood supremacist groups indulged in, of course: threatening letters to politically prominent Muggleborns, odd prank spells going off at all hours of the day and night around their targets’ homes, their symbol—a green snake clutching a bleeding hand in its mouth—left here and there on walls. But they didn’t take credit for as much blood magic and wide-scale terror as the other groups did.
Hermione had thought it was because Salazar’s Snakes were more disaffected than hateful. Harry was inclined to doubt that now. Instead, they probably wanted to keep their strength and their usual behaviors secret, hidden from expectations, so that when they finally acted it would come as a surprise.
Their capture in Diagon Alley had certainly been smooth, he thought with a certain reluctant admiration. They had probably played the part of mediwizards from St. Mungo’s rushing to the sides of accident victims, or of concerned bystanders who had volunteered to take Harry and Draco to the hospital. Move quickly enough, close around them thoroughly enough, and no one would have noticed that the victims were Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy.
No one might even have noticed they were missing, yet.
As he felt for wounds they might have inflicted on him, Harry asked, “Do you know how long we’ve been here, Draco?”
“Yes,” Draco said solemnly. “I have a pocket-watch that begins ticking when I’m captured by my enemies, and chirps every five minutes to helpfully tell me how much time has passed since the capture.”
Harry rolled his eyes, but didn’t comment. Obviously, Ron dealt with captivity by joking, and Draco dealt with captivity by being a prat. “Are you hurt?”
“Not as much as I should be after taking a faceful of glass.”
There was a question in Draco’s voice, and Harry told himself that he owed it to the other man to answer it. He forced himself to sit flat on the floor and turn around. His back was comfortably against a wall, though since he hadn’t yet located any door, it might open behind him at any time. “The curse took over again,” he admitted, “just like that night the mirror slashed your arm open. I saw golden light, and my touch seemed to heal the wound. But I think you have a scar on your forehead now.”
He could feel Draco’s tension humming through the darkness, but he said nothing for some time. Harry felt cautiously across the wall behind him. Nothing.
“You mean,” Draco said, his voice so thick and fierce that it took Harry a long moment to understand the words, “that I have a scar on my forehead—just like you?”
And the insight that had been trying to surface in Harry’s mind when Salazar’s Snakes sneaked up on them came to him at last. He clapped his hands together, and heard Draco make a startled sound. Harry ignored it, his mind racing back across what had happened the night Draco ended up in front of the exploding mirror, and what Draco had already told him about the operation of the curse on his part.
“That’s exactly what it’s trying to do,” he whispered. “Mark us in the same ways.”
“Is there any chance of your sharing the meaning of your idiotic babble with me today, Potter?”
“The scars,” Harry said. “You told me that the scars from the spell I cast at you in sixth year still tingle.”
“Yes,” Draco said, in a querulous tone.
“I’m marked in four places,” Harry said softly. “My forehead, yes, but also on my hand, my forearm, and over my heart.”
More tense silence, and Harry passed the time by feeling for his wand, even though he was sure that it had been taken from him. It had. And Draco couldn’t have his, either, or he would have least cast a Lumos or tried to alert someone to their predicament.
“I’m marked on my arm, my chest, and my forehead now,” he said, sounding strangled.
“Exactly,” said Harry, giving up the search and making his way back across the cell towards Draco’s voice. He took the other man’s hand, ignoring his startled jerk. It seemed that Draco was, if not actively afraid of the darkness, at least not comfortable in it. Yes, he would have definitely called for light if he had his wand. “That means that you have three scars, and when you have four—“
“We can expect something else disgusting to happen,” Draco snarled.
“Disgusting?” Harry could understand why Draco might be upset or frightened of the curse—what would happen if he endured another accident and Harry was not near at hand to heal the wounds to a scar?—but disgusted was a new reaction.
“Yes.” Draco’s hand closed into a fist within his, and then pulled roughly away. “I endured enough of things like this when the Dark Lord was alive, Harry. I have no wish to endure more.”
“I understand that,” Harry said, as calmly as he could, “but this might give us a clue to the operation of the curse.”
Draco said nothing.
Harry stifled the impulse to touch him again, and listened in silence to his breathing. It had grown louder—more ragged, quicker. Harry bit his lip thoughtfully. He knew the signs of fear, but he wondered what it was Draco remembered to make him sound like that.
It’s not my place to ask, and I won’t insist on knowing unless it becomes vital to our survival. “We’ll do what we can about it when we escape,” he said.
Draco laughed, then, a sound that seemed just as jerked out of his lungs as his breathing had become. “And how do you think we’ll do that?” he asked. “They took our wands, Harry. And they’ll want to kill me, at least, if Marian is with them. That had to be the price of her aid.”
“Why would a pure-blood supremacist group want to kill you?” Harry asked. Maybe Draco was so frightened at the moment that he needed the simplest truths spelled out for him. Once again, Harry could not really blame him. “You’re a pure-blood.”
“And yet, I have received threats, and here we are,” Draco said, and by the sound of it, he’d risen to his feet and was pacing. Harry opened his mouth to give a warning, and then shut it. If the floor was utterly smooth, the way it had felt, Draco wouldn’t trip on anything.
And since when am I so solicitous for Draco, anyway?
But he’d felt the same way for Ron the times that he and Ron had worked on Auror cases that crossed the work of the Blood Reparations Department and been captured together. By now, it was almost a routine for them. Ron would joke and hatch useless plans that would only work if they had their wands back, and Harry would listen to the jokes, wait for an opportunity to challenge their captors, and protect his friend from his own hot temper.
Draco might need protection from his own nervousness. Harry forced himself to concentrate on the sound of the other man’s breathing as much as the sound of the words.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they have us, pure-blood group or not,” Draco was saying. “Unless you want to propose a conspiracy of groups working against me, which frankly is laughable.”
“I know,” Harry said, but he tucked the thought away to think about later. “Have you heard anything? Laughter, conversations? How soon did you wake up?”
“Not long after they took us, I think.” Draco gave a loud, gusty sigh, which only trembled a bit at the end. Perhaps he was better at controlling his fear now that he knew someone else was awake and with him. “But we were already alone. And I think there are sound-proofing spells on the walls of this room. I leaned my ear against the stone as long as I could bear it, but nothing. And focusing my magic as much as possible—“
“There are magic-deadening charms, too,” Harry said knowledgably. If there had not been, then he would have felt the surge of power within him. He couldn’t do much that was focused without his wand, but he could achieve some spectacular rough effects. “They were taking no chances on us escaping.”
“How did they know we would be in Diagon Alley?” Draco asked. “Do you think Marian set a trap for us?”
“Maybe.” Harry jolted his mind out of thoughts of worry over Draco and tried to make himself think rationally. “She certainly could have showed herself to shopkeepers in altered guises, or paid people to spread rumors. On the other hand, we were in the Alley for three hours before they attacked. And I doubt they could have known that the window would explode before we did. They took advantage of the chance quickly and smoothly, I agree, but their attack doesn’t make much sense.”
“No, it doesn’t—“
The sound of a door sliding open across the room stung Harry like a whip. He was up and between Draco and the door before he had stopped blinking in the positive dazzle of lamplight that whipped at his eyes in turn. He spread his arms wide, offering Draco as much protection as he could, and looked steadily at the wizard who had intruded.
The woman merely stood still, however, and studied him. She wore a hooded cloak and green mask, and Harry could only tell she was a woman from the way she walked and balanced. Either she had extremely short hair or she’d charmed it to lie flat under the hood. She drew a wand and gestured once towards the room beyond her.
The meaning was unmistakable. Harry shuffled forwards closely, turning so that he was always between Draco and the witch. He thought he heard her chuckle as they passed. Though he strained his ears, he still couldn’t recognize her voice.
She walked closely behind them as they passed into the next room. Harry immediately tried to will his wand to come to him, but the same charms must have covered the entire building; his magic lay sleeping within him.
The room was large, enough that Harry thought it was probably in another manor house somewhere. The walls had been disguised with ripples of watery illusion, however, so that all Harry saw when he looked at them were glints of green and blue. Perhaps a portrait frame or a curtain gleamed free here and there; none of it would be enough to identify the room for certain if he saw it again. Even what might have been a chandelier hanging from the ceiling was clad in a glamour like an enormous spiderweb.
The Salazar’s Snakes waited about the room in a circle. All were hooded and cloaked. No one said anything. Harry wanted to snort. Elementary intimidation tactics. Many of the supremacist groups he’d opposed did them much better.
The woman who’d guided them in moved to stand at the far point of the circle, and the others shifted apart to let her through. Harry raised his eyebrows, and still they continued to stare. Harry cocked his head and wondered if they were also breathing in unison.
Well, if no one else planned to speak, he would.
“You really don’t want to be present when Hermione finds out what you’ve done,” he said conversationally. “She generally doesn’t react well when someone kidnaps her best friend. Why don’t you give us back our wands and let us go before she does find out? It would be the smartest thing you’ve done since you captured us in Diagon Alley.”
*
Draco hissed between his teeth. Does he want to die? You don’t speak like that to someone with power over you.
It was a lesson he had learned well during the year the Dark Lord spent so much of his time in Malfoy Manor. Sarcasm had to be given up. Since the Dark Lord was a Legilimens, Draco couldn’t even think the many things he would have liked to say at first. So he kept his eyes on the floor, and learned to do what he was told when he was told to do it, no matter how distasteful it was, and spent little time with his parents, so as not to render them targets if the Dark Lord grew angry at him.
And Harry glared at their silent, motionless captors as if he were perfectly in control of the situation.
Draco could now believe the stories that Harry had spat at the Dark Lord’s face and challenged him with insults. It was a stupid thing to do, but Harry carried courage into the definition of stupid.
“I assure you,” he said quietly, “I have not changed my mind as radically as you seem to think I have. No Mudblood will walk on the grounds of Malfoy Manor while I live. And I do still have money—plenty of it. My mother can arrange ransom procedures.” It wasn’t really that long ago—a few centuries only—that pure-blood families had sometimes kidnapped the heirs of other prominent lines, usually for money, sometimes for revenge, sometimes for marriage partners. Because anyone who cared to inquire would know that Draco was already married, it couldn’t be the last of those purposes, and Draco couldn’t conceive what they would want revenge on him for. Money, though, was a constant concern of groups like this one, who were hardly able to ask for funding from the Ministry.
“We know about your crimes, Draco Malfoy,” said a disembodied voice that reminded Draco of the voice of the Bloody Baron. He was almost sure it was, in fact. There was a spell that could make the speaker’s voice sound like a ghost’s. Criminals commonly employed it when they didn’t want to be recognized. “We know that for the past ten years, you have fattened yourself on the remains of a pardon and made no effort to relieve the suffering of your father in prison.”
“My father is completing his assigned sentence,” Draco said stiffly. Despite everything, that accusation stung. “Trying to talk the Ministry into lightening it would have jeopardized the future of the family.”
“Excuses,” said the same voice, but perhaps not the same person, since it was coming from elsewhere in the circle now. “Always excuses. Your father was a hero.”
Draco thought of the way his father’s face had looked when the Dark Lord took first his wand and then his home, and bit his tongue, hard. At least there didn’t appear to be a Legilimens among them.
He felt Harry move closer to him, and just barely kept from shaking his head in exasperation. What did Harry think he was going to do? Volunteer to take on any pain curses that might be aimed at Draco? Draco knew how these things went. Harry had been a captive, yes, but never for any length of time. Draco could already feel his instincts shifting back towards what they’d been in that dreadful year, when one denigrated oneself if one wanted to survive.
“He may have been,” he said, his eyes lowered, his voice meek. He need feel no dishonor. He was sure that it was no Mudblood who lectured him, and submitting to the person who held the power at the moment was sheer good sense. “But I like to think that he would commend me for what I am doing: facing my enemies, resisting baseless accusations of murder, and continuing to raise my son to share in the Malfoy legacy, holding it secure for him.”
“There is someone among us who is concerned about the way you raise your son.”
Draco restrained a grim smile. Marian. She is one of them, then. Perhaps she was the one who had taunted him with this. Well, she should have restrained the impulse. Perhaps she had gained some petty, fleeting satisfaction from the maneuver, but Draco had gained far more valuable information. “I know,” he said. “And I would welcome friends who could teach me what my son has missed.”
The witch who had guided them out into the room laughed, but even that was disguised, so that it sounded like wind moaning through open windows. “We are not your friends, Draco Malfoy. We are very far from being your friends.”
“What are you, then?” Draco asked, but the witch turned away and addressed Harry instead of looking at him. Draco folded his hands tightly behind his back, though he knew there were watchers behind them, too, and prayed that Harry wouldn’t say anything too stupid.
“We have had enough of you, as well, Mr. Potter,” she said. “Your ‘work’ with the Blood Reparations Department has often obstructed many of our dearest goals.”
Draco sneaked a look at Harry. His face was bored, and his arms folded, as if he didn’t care what anyone in the room might say. He shook his head slightly. “And I will continue to do that,” he said. “Hermione even more. I keep trying to tell you, when she finds out that you targeted one of her friends, she’s going to make a target out of you.”
Draco thought a few of the wizards shifted uneasily at that, but the witch in the center simply stepped forwards. “The debt we owe you cannot simply be wiped out by blood,” she whispered. “Not even the Cruciatus Curse will bring us the satisfaction we desire.”
“Let me guess,” said Harry. “Each of you will slap me for my impertinence and recite your family trees at me until I die of boredom.”
The witch laughed again, and then took several more steps forwards, until she stood a few inches away from Harry. Draco was suddenly sure that, whatever importance he might hold for the others, Harry was this woman’s focus. She lifted a hand as if she would really slap him, but turned it into a caress on his cheek. Harry jerked his face away, wrinkling his lip in disgust, and Draco felt jealousy wake in him with a sudden snarl. It was bad enough to think of Harry spending the nights with his legitimately bonded wife.
“We have information on you,” she whispered. “We know things about you that would make you tremble to know they were in our possession. How you laugh, how much you like your job—and what your childhood was like.”
Draco glanced at Harry. Harry’s eyes were narrow slits of green. If not for the spells on the room that deadened their ability to perform magic, Draco thought he would have felt Harry’s magic rising and raging around him. Of course, there had been so many rumors in the Daily Prophet about Harry’s less-than-desirable childhood that Draco wasn’t entirely sure what the truth was, but Harry didn’t look at all frightened. Only angry that they’d taken the liberty, Draco supposed.
“Ah,” Harry said. “I understand now. You’ll simply recite insinuations at me until I die of boredom.”
The witch chuckled again, infuriatingly, and glanced at Draco. “And we have information on young Mr. Malfoy, as well,” she said. “From someone who has shared his life for quite a while, and may know much more than he wants her to, simply because she is a good observer.” She paused dramatically. “Gentlemen, did you know that you share a phobia?”
Harry’s eyes only widened in confusion, but Draco felt his heart suddenly leap like a captured Snitch.
No. She wouldn’t. She doesn’t know—
But she might have. She might have. She had shared his bed for years, and Draco had had nightmares, and he might have cried out during them. And there had been the period when Narcissa had been so anxious to make her daughter-in-law comfortable in the Manor, and had thought the way to do it was to tell her more about Draco’s history.
“You’re lying,” he said, and thought he did quite a good job of feigning coolness around the sour taste in his mouth.
“I am not,” said the witch promptly, and then waved her wand. That made Draco wonder if the magic-dampening spells were on him and Harry, instead of the building. It would make sense, especially with the glamours shimmering on the walls—
He tried to distract himself from what he knew was coming, but it was useless.
Especially when the box floated into the center of the room.
It looked like a coffin, though it was both wider and deeper. Draco stared at it the way he imagined a toddler might regard a Dementor. It was made of some bright, nearly red, polished wood, perhaps cherry. It had a hinged lid that would close down on it—
On whoever lay inside—
He was breathing so fast that he had already dried his mouth out. Harry turned to stare at him uncomprehendingly.
“The fear of small, dark places,” the witch said, and chuckled again. “Mr. Potter grew up in a cupboard, and Mr. Malfoy had a—shall we say, an experience, with a corner of his parents’ cellar during the war? Provided by his aunt Lestrange, of course. Quite an experience. It lasted three days.” She cocked her head. “Our source of information says that he came out with his sanity intact, but precariously balanced.”
Draco turned to run, despite knowing it would do absolutely no good. A Tripping Jinx closed on him at once, of course, and he pitched to the ground. Then he was floating into the air, and the box’s lid was open, and he was squirming—
He was screaming, though it was high and thin and soundless. His mind and his blood boiled with the memories of Bellatrix, locking him into place with spells that damped all his senses, in a magic-created cell so small he could barely stand up in it. And now he would be locked in a box smaller than that, shared with Potter, and there would be spells on the box to muffle noise and feeling, he knew there would, and it would be dark—
“Enjoy prison, gentlemen,” the witch said, with a deep sigh, as they settled in and the lid swung shut. The voice-altering charm could not disguise that the sound was one of intense vindication.
*
Harry had already seen what would need to be done.
Their information on him was interesting, but incomplete. Harry had never particularly liked his cupboard, but neither had it given him claustrophobia. He had survived it, and sometimes it had even provided him a safe space from the Dursleys, and that was more than enough to dispel any fear.
Draco, on the other hand, was struggling like a mad thing, keening, his fear all too much alive. Even if they were rescued soon, Harry thought, he might very well come out of the box insane or catatonic.
The box’s lid sealed and locked. As Harry had anticipated, the inside was utterly dark, without even a line of light to mark the top, and there was just barely room enough for both of them to lie down, facing each other, with their legs tangled together. Sound-proofing spells guarded them from hearing any sound their captors might make or being heard if they screamed, the box’s wood felt like nothing in particular, and other charms had removed any smell and taste from the air. They were not going to suffocate, Harry discerned; a hidden vent gave them fresh air. But it was going to be absolute and endless torture for Draco.
So Harry did what needed to be done. He hummed, verifying to himself that no sound-proofing spells had been cast on the inside of the box, and then he slid forwards, turning so he was chest to chest with Draco, and wrapped his arms around him. Draco didn’t seem to notice; he was still caught in his silent, furious struggle, though his movements were more restricted now.
“Draco,” Harry said, his voice as calm and deep as he could possibly make it. “Listen to me, Draco. Focus on my voice. It will help you.”
And, drawing his breath, he began to talk.
Chapter 15.
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And thank you for commenting!
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You drama queen!!!That was "extreme" angst??!? Pff!!!
Anyway I'll take any angst as long as it means we get lullabies and petting too!
And Mary is still my home girl!
And I think that Granger-weasly is probably gonna believe that he finally took off with his "dreamlover"! ;)
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Hermione doesn't know anything about how Harry and Draco have become- or she didn't know, before Chapter 15.
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And Harry. How I love you. You absurdly brave, over confident, tender soul. You are just so inherently Good. Take care of him, 'kay? He's gonna keep needing you, even when he pushes you away. And you need him too.
Okay, apparently I'm a little invested in this fic, since I'm writing directly to the characters. Sigh.
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Harry has a lot of courage. Of course, that's going to end up costing him a lot in the future, when other people don't understand why he's making these sacrifices to serve Draco and Draco doesn't understand why he can't make more of them.
And hey, I like it when people get invested in my stories. :)
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Wow. I enjoyed that last little bit just a wee bit too much I think. XD
Great job as always, dear. I'm on tenterhooks once again!
<3
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UH! I need to breathe...
Great chappie!
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Lovely work with this chapter. I don't like how Draco submits to his captors, but that's just the way he was raised. I hope these two can escape soon!
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Draco was actually raised with more pride, but his experiences during the war shoved him closer to submissiveness.
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I only hope he can keep Draco calm.
Beautiful, dear.
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And thank you!
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I love the contrast between how they both react to being held prisoners! It's so on the spot!
And I'm looking forward to hearing how Harry manages to calm Draco;)
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I compulsively check for updates, and I'm impressed that you update so often.
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And yeah, Voldemort set certain standards that Salazar's Snakes just can't reach.
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And H/D locked in a box???? How SQUEE is that???
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And thanks! Harry does actually have a better sense of what's happening, I think, but then, he's spent more time dealing with this kind of person than Draco has.